Rocky

One of the most colorful boarders we had at our house on White Street was named Rocky Tretola from Brooklyn. I don’t know where my grandmother found these people, but they somehow found our house on White Street and became part of our lives during racing season.

Rocky was an Italian guy who had to have been in his late 50’s when I was a teenager. He was gruff and always seemed like he was pissed off, but he was always good to me. I would run to Five Points for him to get the Racing Form and other things he wanted. He would always overpay me.

He was also the only one who didn’t drink alcohol, which made every other person in our house speculate as to why. In a house full of copious drinkers, the sober one is always suspect. Rocky lived for the Racetrack as everyone in our house did and it was a great time for a long time.

He was a fixture in our house during August for many years, maybe ten or fifteen years. One year my grandmother overbooked and didn’t have a room for Rocky. He was completely dismayed. (People usually secured a reservation at White Street at least 6 months in advance.) I think Rocky assumed my grandmother would hold a place for him and she probably should have.

She sent him down the other end of White Street near Clark Street to Mrs. Moss’s house where she had an in-law apt. Rocky let me and my friends use the place while he was at the track. I invited my friends over to drink wine coolers and smoke cigarettes when I was much too young to do either of those things. This arrangement was sadly short lived as Rocky hated Mrs. Moss.

Admittedly, there wasn’t much to like about Mrs. Moss as she was notoriously eccentric and difficult to get along with. But she wasn’t thrilled that underage kids were drinking and smoking in her house. That much was understandable.

Rocky had some kind of disagreement with Mrs. Moss and told her he was going back to ‘Anne’s’ (my grandmother) He simply walked into our house and told my grandmother that he hated Mrs. Moss and that he was happy to rent our living room sofa for the rest of the race meet. That arrangement was also short-lived as my other relatives said no when my grandmother could not.

I left the White Street house when I was seventeen and lost touch with the all the folks who stayed with us over the years. Rocky was the real one, he looked out for me in ways that adults around me did not. He frequently bought pizza from Oma’s for everyone in the house. I wished I would have kept in touch with some of the people who became part of the family in many ways, but when you are a teenager, you want to do your own thing and for a long time, I was happy to be away from White Street.